Frozen Charlotte

by Priscilla Masters

  ‘Do you have an address for the Godfreys?’

  For the first time Palmer looked confused. ‘Somewhere,’ he said, ‘I must have a forwarding address.’ Panic seemed to be rising. ‘I must have one,’ He leafed through the file then looked up, ‘but I don’t seem to have it here.’

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind looking,’ Roberts said.

  ‘Yes – yes – of course. I’ll have a more thorough look on my computer records.’

  Palmer sat at his desk and started using his mouse to access files. He tapped a few keys and stared into the computer screen. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I knew I’d have it somewhere.’ He looked up. ‘But I may have a bit of a problem. The address I have is of a hotel in Malaga. As far as I remember they were building their own house over there. I seem to remember them talking about it to me. So…’ He looked up helplessly.

  ‘If you can give me all the details you have.’ Roberts was dreaming… A trip to Spain, a trip to Spain. Surely he couldn’t be so lucky? He was already picturing himself lounging by an azure swimming pool, bright, hot sunshine, lovely girls in skimpy bikinis, him telling them all he was ‘pursuing a murder enquiry’. A cross between James Bond and George Smiley.

  He came to with a start. Palmer was handing him a computer printout.

  ‘Here you are,’ he said, and as though he had read Roberts’s mind, he added jovially, ‘expect you’ll be flying out to Spain, constable.’

  Gethin Roberts went bright red.

  That afternoon Alex rang Martha and suggested they meet up to discuss the case. ‘Why don’t you come here, Alex? Jericho can get some sandwiches in. We can have a working lunch.’ She chuckled. ‘I’m snowed under – in more ways than one.’

  ‘Good idea, Martha. I’ll join you at one.’

  ‘Anything you don’t eat?’

  ‘Absolutely nothing.’

  Jericho didn’t look too pleased when Martha said Alex would be joining her for lunch. He had an almost possessive idea of his role in her work and simply hated it when she had one-to-one meetings with anyone. They should all be through him. So he felt doubly aggrieved that the discussion about a case which was provoking considerable interest would exclude him. He harrumphed and bowed his shoulders with resentment. Martha took no notice. She was used to Jericho’s ways and the best way to deal with this attitude was to ignore it, as though he was a two-year-old having a tantrum.

  Alex arrived late at a quarter past one and quickly apologized. ‘What a morning,’ he said. ‘So many accidents with all this snow and ice. It’s bitingly cold out there, Martha.’ He gave her a shrewd look accompanied by a warm grin. ‘No more messages from your secret admirer, I hope?’

  She shook her head. ‘He’s not an admirer,’ she said, ‘I’m not sure what he is but he isn’t that. But yes, all is quiet and I feel better having discussed it with you so thank you. As a reward,’ she tacked on, ‘the sandwiches are on me.’

  He laughed. ‘I accept,’ he said, ‘although it really isn’t necessary.’ His eyes were warm. ‘It’s all in a day’s work, you know.’

  ‘Well, thank you anyway,’ she said.

  To her relief Alex was looking practically his normal self. More relaxed and he seemed happier. She handed him a chicken and bacon sandwich with mayo and took one herself.

  ‘Now then,’ she said, when she had taken her first lovely bite. She hadn’t realized how hungry she’d been. ‘What was it that you wanted to discuss with me? Have there been any developments?’

  ‘No. Not really. It’s how far we take this,’ Randall said. ‘Mark Sullivan thinks the baby’s death was probably a tragic mistake, even that it could have been born dead. Certainly it didn’t survive more than a few hours. We have, of course, DNA samples so would be able to match the baby to its mother and its father. However at best we have a manslaughter charge. Juries are very reluctant to convict on charges of infanticide, the assumption generally being that the balance of the mother’s mind was temporarily disturbed. There are very few convictions on record. Certainly when the forensic evidence is so weak. The CPS will probably not want us to proceed.’

  She nodded and Alex proceeded to voice his case.

  ‘In spite of Alice Sedgewick’s strange behaviour she’s out of the picture really. She’s in her early fifties. It’s very unlikely that she would have been pregnant in the last five years. The people who lived in the house before the Sedgewicks were a couple called the Godfreys who apparently had no children and decamped to live in Spain when they sold the house. I can’t see why they would have felt the need to hide a baby. According to the deeds of The Mount they bought the house in 2002 from an elderly widow who had lived there before her husband died for over twenty years.’ DI Randall took a gargantuan bite of his sandwich and chewed it thoughtfully. ‘He’d died in the late eighties so that covers the entire window of opportunity if the baby had been concealed by the owner of the house.’

  Martha listened and Alex Randall continued. ‘It’s hard to imagine that an outsider would have had the opportunity to hide the child in the loft space. So we’re left with this collection of unlikely people or…’ He screwed up his face. ‘Someone connected with one of those families. It doesn’t make a lot of sense but I should just speak to the Godfreys.’

  ‘Are you suggesting a trip to Spain, Alex,’ Martha asked lightly.

  Alex grinned at her hopefully.

  She regained her seriousness. ‘Well, it seems it’s either that or you drop the case, “The police have decided not to pursue their enquiries” and all that. If you want my professional opinion you can probably guess it. You should always pursue the truth. It may be that the only crime is a case of concealment; the why for now a mystery, but it is just possible that this is a case of infanticide in which case we must pursue it. We have no option, Alex. Go to Spain. Speak to Mr and Mrs Godfrey, find out the truth, if you can. In the meantime there are other questions, aren’t there?’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘You don’t need me to spell it out. Alice Sedgewick is a disturbed woman for some reason of her own. You’ve come to that conclusion yourself.’

  Alex nodded.

  ‘There is the name Poppy.’ She smiled at him. ‘Was there anything else?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not for now,’ he said. ‘Thanks for the advice. And the sandwiches.’

  ‘Thank Jericho,’ she said, smiling. ‘He got them.’

  ‘I will.’ He eased his long bony frame out of the chair, stood up and shook her hand. ‘I owe you the same back,’ he said. ‘Lunch, some time?’

  ‘That would be nice,’ she said carefully.

  He gave her a smile. And then he was gone.

  She was busy all afternoon. The parents of a woman who had committed suicide wanted to speak to her. They were upset and disturbed, a devoutly Christian couple to whom suicide was a mortal sin. She told them to seek reassurance from their priest but they wanted something she couldn’t give them – an assurance that their daughter had not committed suicide when she had left a note stating her intention. She could not lie to them even if it might make them feel temporarily better. The interview took far longer than she would have imagined. They had all sorts of questions to ask her and plenty of issues for her to deal with too. She had just ushered them out of the door when Jericho rang to say that a body had been fished out of the river from under the ice and the police surgeon wished to speak to her. Not Delyth Fontaine but one of her colleagues.

  She spoke to Richard Tamar, the police surgeon in question, and authorized movement of the body and a post-mortem.

  Death, she thought. Her work was always to be in that position, sitting on the shoulders of the Angel of Death, trying to form order out of disorder, trying to make some sense of it all.

  For one brief moment she allowed herself to dream the completely impossible, that she was on that flight to Spain, wearing scarlet espadrilles and a floating, white cotton dress, plastering her arms with factor 30, in deference to her pale skin and red hair,
wearing a large straw hat and armed with paperbacks. Adventures and romances. It seemed years since she had had a holiday like that.

  She stared out of the window at the gloomy arctic landscape. Maybe, she thought, she and Sukey and even Sam if he could, would embark on such a holiday soon. Time to look at the brochures.

  She was glad to finish work that day and drive home on salted and gritted roads.

  Last month she had bought a lovely black dress with a single silver strap on the shoulder but she hadn’t worn it yet. It had been too cold over Christmas to wear an off-the-shoulder dress. It was still cold but Simon Pendlebury was a man who appreciated women dressing up and invariably made some comment on her appearance, so she decided to christen the new dress tonight. As she brushed her hair, unruly as ever, coppery highlights looking fearsomely red, she reflected that since Simon’s wife, Evelyn, had died, they had become quite good friends. She enjoyed their occasional dinners together. They were infrequent and emotionally undemanding but she knew he respected her opinion and she enjoyed his company for an evening without either of them expecting it to lead anywhere else. So why the note of desperation in his voice when he had rung on Sunday morning?

  Well, she thought, she’d find out soon enough.

  Sam rang at seven, jubilant because he’d been pronounced fit to play again. She wanted to ask him if he’d heard anything about the Stoke deal but held her tongue, simply congratulating him and saying she was glad that he was playing again.

  She left Agnetha and Sukey watching High School Musical - yet again – and drove into the town.

  There was little traffic around because of the inclement weather. People were staying indoors. She drove gingerly over roads with their treacherous black icy sheen and headed towards Drapers’ Hall.

  It was one of her favourite places to eat and that wasn’t just because of the food. It was the ambience of the place, the interior of the sixteenth-century hall, one of the oldest if not the oldest building in a town that was predominantly medieval. Inside was no disappointment. It was panelled, furnished with genuine antiques and ancient portraits on the walls.

  Simon was there before her. She saw his Lexus LS already parked and manoeuvred her Audi behind it. Even with the fur wrap she shivered crossing the road. He was waiting for her in the vestibule, a tall, dark-haired man, slim and very elegant in a dark suit. Martin and Simon had been flatmates briefly when they had been students together which was how she had known him and his wife, Evelyn. She and Martin had had many discussions about Simon’s strong and devious personality, but they had never worked out how he could have made so much money in a few short years. Evelyn herself, when she had been alive, had never made any comment about their finances. She had kept dumb about their lovely house with acres of woodland and trout fishing pool, their succession of top-of-the-range cars and school fees amounting to tens of thousands of pounds for their two daughters. In fact, Martha had sensed that even Evelyn did not quite trust her husband who was blessed with a sort of roguish confidence as well as a dark secrecy. During the drive into town she had tried guessing at what was causing Simon Pendlebury such tensions and had finally decided on some subversive financial problem. Though why he would want to speak to her on such matters she couldn’t even guess. She was in for a surprise. As he bent to kiss her cheek she sensed something very different about him. He’d lost some weight and a little of his confidence. In fact he was slightly nervous, his top lip beaded with moisture. She studied him. This was most unlike the Simon Pendlebury she had known for years. Curious, she sat down and watched him as he fetched her a gin from the bar. As he set it down on the table, next to his glass of white wine, she noticed his hand was shaking.

  ‘Simon,’ she said, covering it with her own, leaning forward, concerned. ‘Something’s wrong, isn’t it? Whatever is it?’

  He sat opposite her, hardly meeting her eyes but looking downwards. ‘You’re going to think me such a fool, Martha,’ he said. ‘Such a bloody idiot. I’m so angry with myself. Evie would have been…’

  ‘What on earth have you done?’

  He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Let’s order first,’ he said.

  ‘Fine.’

  She could hardly concentrate on the menu, good though it was. The truth was she was seriously worried. Evelyn Pendlebury and she had been very good friends for a long time, right up until Evie’s death. Evie had been kind to her after Martin’s death, inviting her round over the long weekends that seemed to stretch so far into the distance. When Evie had known she was dying she had more or less asked Martha to keep an eye on her husband.

  Martha waited.

  They ate their first course hardly speaking, which again was unusual for Simon. He was a natural talker with a wide variety of topics to keep the conversation flowing but tonight he made no effort. He didn’t even comment on her new dress – a first for him. He was polite but distracted.

  He waited until they were eating their main course before speaking.

  His eyes shifted around the room then landed on Martha. ‘I’ve fallen in love,’ he said simply.

  She was tempted to laugh. ‘Is that all?’ she said. ‘That’s good. A happy thing.’ Her eyes found his and she wondered. ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ he said. ‘Martha, I’m in my late forties. Christabel is twenty-three years old. She works for me. She’s a secretary for the firm.’

  ‘That is quite an age gap,’ she agreed. ‘But doesn’t love conquer all?’

  For the first time that night Simon gave her one of his rare smiles. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not all. Armenia and Jocasta are absolutely furious. They’re calling her a gold-digger and all sorts of names. It’s tearing me apart.’

  She was watching his face. ‘There’s something more to this than simply a man falling for a woman young enough to be his daughter, isn’t there?’

  He nodded. ‘I’m frightened that they’re right,’ he admitted.

  Martha waited.

  ‘It’s hard to say this without sounding a snob but she doesn’t come from the best of backgrounds. Her father’s in prison for a violent robbery. Her mother – well it’s hard to know, but just let’s say that Chrissie has never had any money and I think possibly she is a bit dazzled by the trappings of wealth.’

  Martha was watching him carefully.

  ‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘I don’t care. I think it’s that that terrifies me. I don’t care if she’s just professing love for me out of greed or avarice and I don’t care that my beloved daughters loathe her. Nothing seems to matter any more except the time I spend with her.’

  Now she was worried. ‘You have got it bad, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I wasn’t like this with Evie.’ His eyes held mute appeal. ‘What’s happening to me, Martha?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t have a whole lot of experience with stuff like this. I suppose most people would call it infatuation.’ She reached out and touched his hand again to soften her words. ‘Forgive me but it sounds like a middle-aged man having a crisis. Have the girls actually met her?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘You’ve set up a meeting?’

  ‘Yes, though goodness knows what I expect to achieve through it. The girls have quite made up their minds. I don’t even know if it’s fair to expose Chrissie to their spite.’

  Martha was shocked to hear Simon reject his daughters in this way. They’d lost their mother. He was their only living parent. She didn’t know how to tackle this without alienating Simon herself.

  ‘Simon,’ she said slowly, ‘it’s very early days yet. I mean…’ She searched for something to say. ‘Evie’s only been dead for a year.’

  ‘And ill for three years before that.’

  She nodded, unhappy to cross this boundary into her friends’ personal lives.

  Simon’s dark eyes met hers, appealing for her to understand this. ‘It isn’t just sex, Martha. It’s having someone young, someone light, happy, cheerful, healt
hy, beautiful to do things with. So alive. As you say poor Evie was ill. I can hardly remember her well any more. Only the shell of the woman she was.’

  ‘Simon,’ Martha said tentatively, sensing something else now, ‘what do you want from me?’

  ‘I want to marry Chrissie,’ he said, ‘and I want the girls to accept her. They’ll listen to you. Talk to them – please?’

  ‘Why rush into marriage, Simon?’

  ‘Because I want to,’ he said simply. ‘I love her and I want to be married to her. Please speak to the girls or they will lose me.’ She caught the set of his jaw and knew he spoke no more or less than the truth. At the same time she felt a traitor to her once best friend. Evie would have been desperately unhappy at this turn of events but she must help – do what she could.

  ‘I will,’ she said, ‘if you really want me to but it won’t do any good. I know your daughters, Simon. They take after you. They’re determined and stubborn. They’re very strong characters.’

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Meet Chrissie for yourself. Make up your own mind.’

  She reached out and touched his hand. ‘Not that it will make any difference to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Speak to Armenia and Jocasta.’

  ‘And if I think Chrissie is what they think?’

  He smiled then. ‘I can’t ask you to lie for me.’ He hesitated, frowning. ‘I suppose,’ he said finally, ‘what I’m asking you to do.’ He looked straight at her. ‘I’ve been lucky in business and I’ve shown some very perceptive judgements. I suppose…’ He laughed for the first time that evening. ‘What I’m really asking is for you to check her out. I do trust your judgement, Martha. And I think you’re fair. I want to know. Am I being a complete fool? Have I lost all sense and reason?’

  ‘You think I can judge that on a brief meeting?’

  ‘I don’t know what else to do,’ he said simply, ‘or who else to trust.’

  So now as well as the problem of the newborn infant Martha had this complicated and potentially tragic case to consider and she didn’t know whether she was up to it.